The impact of recently announced cuts to Radio Australia and other international services of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is likely to be raised at a Pacific leaders meeting in Palau next week.

Vanuatu's Lands Minister Ralph Regenvanu says the proposed cuts, which will see programs axed and 80 jobs lost from services to the Pacific and Asia, will affect Australia's relations with Pacific countries.

"There is going to be a reduced presence of Australia throughout the region because Radio Australia and ABC have been like the presence of Australia throughout the communities," he said.

Mr Regenvanu believes a number of leaders will raise the issue with Mr Truss.

The cuts are the ABC's response to the Australian government's decision in its May budget to cancel the $223 million ten-year contract for Australia Network Television, amounting to a 60 per cent cut to funding for the ABC's International services.

The proposed changes announced last week will see the ABC keep a 6-hour television service for the Pacific, to be called Australia Plus and its existing Australia Plus online and mobile services.

Radio Australia will continue as a 24-hour service with hourly news bulletins from 5am until 6pm but all its English language programs made for a Pacific audience, except Pacific Beat, will be axed and replaced by domestic ABC programming.

Pacific Beat will also have reduced resources.

Mr Regenvanu says he is disappointed by the changes.

"We knew that there was going to be some cutting because of the statements by the government prior to the election. However, we were hoping it wasn't going to be this extensive, especially to the Pacific service because as you know throughout the Pacific often the services of ABC, Radio Australia are the services people use to access news, more than even our national broadcasters," he said.

"In Vanuatu for example, in many places throughout the country they access news about the world, and even about Vanuatu, from the ABC because the reach of the national broadcaster Radio Vanuatu isn't as extensive as the ABC and often you can't get the same service you get in terms of news content."

Director of the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University, Professor Stephen Howes, says the ABC has a particularly important role to play in the Pacific where media choices are thin on the ground, and he is taken aback by the proposed changes.

"I am pretty surprised and stunned to be honest," he said.

"Obviously there had to be cuts with the loss of the network and I guess with the new era of integration that was going to have some spill over on to radio but we didn't expect the cuts of this size, especially to impact Pacific correspondents and programming.

"There are quite a large number of Australians interested in the Pacific, working in the Pacific and they really rely on Radio Australia to bring that news.

"While it is good that Pacific Beat has been spared it is very hard to see how Pacific Beat will continue to function with all the cuts to it and going on around it."

Correspondents to go

All Australia Network and Radio Australia correspondent positions, including its Pacific, Indonesia and India Correspondents and Canberra Correspondent will be abolished.

However, the ABC will maintain its foreign bureaux in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.

Multi-award winning Pacific Correspondent Sean Dorney is one of those facing redundancy and says he is astonished by the extent of the changes.

"It doesn't surprise me in the least that my job has been declared to be non-existent anymore because principally I was working for the Australia Network service and in the budget that was what was cut," Mr Dorney said.

"What does surprise me a little is that other jobs that weren't actually part of the Australia Network set up, but part of Radio Australia, have also gone in this rejuggling that the ABC has done to try and maintain some sort of a service across more than just radio."

Australia Network axing "sends a strange message"

The Australian government's decision to end funding for the Australia Network is thought to have been made after it was angered by ABC reporting of Australian spying on Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his inner circle.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says she saw Australia Network as a poor use of the soft-power diplomacy dollar.

There was criticism over the bidding process for the Australia Network contract and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull says with internet options available Australia Network's service had been "overtaken by technology".

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott lobbied the government to save the ABC International television service in the lead up to the budget announcement.

On budget night, he said the decision "sends a strange message to the region that the government does not want to use the most powerful communication tools available ... to talk to our regional neighbours about Australia".

The proposed changes have been put to staff for consultation.

During that period Mr Scott is unavailable for comment.

In documents given to staff, the ABC says the changes focus on maintaining and developing those services with the strongest audience engagement and the greatest potential for growth.